The Colombian soprano María Andrea Parias, passion for early music in Paris

The singer María Andrea Parias grew up in Bogotá between boleros and vallenatos, bullerengue and salsa. Do I miss, then, her passion for early music? “No, because we must not forget that this type of music is part of the European heritage in Latin America,” warns the soprano who has lived in France for twenty years. “The cultural encounter between Spain and Colombia created a repertoire that was also composed in Colombia. This musical heritage that we received from that encounter with the European world is also part of our tradition and our history. From that point of view, I think it is a universal language that must be valued and learned”, he adds.

Dedicating your life to ancient music requires immersing yourself in the past. “The work of a musician who is dedicated to baroque or medieval music mainly requires a study and knowledge of ancient sources, the books and manuscripts that contain the music of that time. This also entails the study of notations, of the ways of writing music that were unique at that time. Each center, each country, each era developed in many instances different notation systems. Starting from that base, it is important to be able to read those notations, interpret them, know the codes. Today , there are many transcriptions. This music must be rewritten in modern notation, which is the notation used in most cases today. It is true that many times much of the information needed to interpret is lost in the most faithful way this music. It is what is called historically informed interpretation. There is also a lot of research into the contexts, how this music was presented, in what way, in front of what audience it was performed, in which rooms, how what were those rooms, what instruments were used, how the instruments were made. All of this is part of the research work that is necessary to try to bring this music to the present in the most faithful way”, he adds.

One of the privileged places to carry out this research work are cathedrals and churches, the Colombian soprano also explains. “Religious centers have always been great sponsors of music. They were places where it was necessary to compose and have musicians in permanent work. Many of these places today have archives where sheet music is kept. This is a practice that has been around since it was invented. musical writing, that is, in medieval times. In the same way that the abbeys in Europe had their scriptorium, where these musical books were copied, over time this tradition was preserved and we also receive it in Latin America” .

It is a tradition that lives on. One of the projects in which María Andrea Parias has participated was a recording with the Música Ficta group from Bogotá based mainly on works from the archive of the Primada de Colombia Cathedral in Bogotá. “There is a whole lot of work going on right now to transcribe, to recover that repertoire, although there is a long way to go. There is a lot of repertoire and music that still has to be discovered in that archive,” she notes.

In the Primate Cathedral there is a school (Schola Cantorum) with which she has collaborated. The soprano always tries to combine her work as her interpreter and her interventions in universities, mainly in Javeriana and the Andes (Bogotá). For many years she also worked at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral. She sang medieval polyphonies written for the choirs. It is a great privilege “to recreate today the music that was created in that same place centuries ago, to perform it in its place of origin” and for that reason it is an “absolutely incredible” experience. In fact, the best memory she has of her artistic career was “one night singing solo in front of about 800 people at Notre-Dame.”

The next artistic projects of María Andrea Parias include concerts at the MedRen Festival in Munich on July 25; a project of chamber duets from the 17th century with the Teatro d’Arcadia ensemble (Bern), conducted by Edoardo Torbianelli, and a collaboration of ancient and contemporary music with the composer Etienne Gauthier in the show Diode.